From Booklist
Something isn't quite right with Philadelphia bluebloods Neddy and Tea Roederer, benefactors of the Philadelphia Prep School library. Philly Prep teacher and amateur sleuth Amanda Pepper sees the first signs in the Roederers' son's glum manner. Then a more urgent problem appears: the crusade of the Reverend Harvey Spiers' book-burning Moral Ecologists--the same Reverend Spiers whose stepson, Jake, is best friends with the Roederers' son. As Amanda talks with both boys, she realizes there are much deeper problems, and when the crusading Reverend Spiers is murdered, she knows things have spun out of control. Amanda finds no shortage of suspects: Spiers' Moral Ecologist rival and erstwhile lover, his hysterical wife, his hulking stepson, even Neddy and Tea. Pepper is an engaging and forthright heroine; there are some nice bits of humor here; and the focus on First Amendment rights and censorship will hit home with librarians and library supporters.
Emily Melton
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Kirkus Reviews
If Neddy and Tea Roederer lived in Boston, they wouldn't have to speak to anyone but the Cabots and the Lowells. In Philadelphia, though, their millions can't insulate them from contact with Amanda Pepper's spineless colleagues at Philly Prep, where their adopted son Griffin attends school, or from the Moral Ecologists, the censorship mavens who'd be ludicrous if they weren't so dangerous. Now that Amanda has talked the Roederer Trust into settling a nice piece of change on the Philly Prep library, Neddy and Tea are on a collision course with Moral Ecologist loudmouth Rev. Harvey Spiers--a collision course that begins with the hanging of an effigy and leads up to the real thing. As the Philly Prep staff and the Moral Ecologists (``Don't pollute minds!'') trip over each other in their haste to embarrass themselves, and Amanda and her favorite cop, C.K. Mackenzie, sort out the zanies from the murderers, the unlikely friendship between two lonely boys--Spiers's stepson Jake Ulrich and Griffin Roederer--emerges as the heart of this story. It's a strong heart that, together with Roberts's unusually firm mystery-mongering and pointed use of clues, makes Amanda's eighth case (The Mummers' Curse, 1996, etc.) her finest hour yet. --
Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
